Lifelines
by ChiseHatori
Summary: Agrippa and Weyer pull Daniel into their protective hold after the shadow consumes the Inner Sanctum. He's transported into the Other World, where the two men vow to protect Daniel at all costs as he recovers from the traumatic events he suffered through at Brennenburg.
1. Chapter 1

The darkness feels crippling. Daniel tucks his knees close to his chest and rocks himself back and forth. His mind is steeped in a deep delirium. He tries to intake even breathes to calm his broken psyche, but the air itself is suffocating him.

This is it. This is end of his life.

He had carried Agrippa's severed head into the Inner Sanctum and tossed it into the portal as soon as it had appeared. Yet, the shadow had consumed him nonetheless. Alexander, too. The elder man had screeched in pain and terror once it overwhelmed his body. Then, Daniel had been consumed as well. The shadow had been relentless in its pursuit and in death. Daniel had awoken in plain darkness. It stretches into a void of blackness that seems never-ending, and the silence that permeates the atmosphere is unnatural and strange.

The gashes across his chest and limbs still ache. The pain keeps him anchored in reality in some small, feeble way. He focuses on it, particularly the worst wound he has sustained on his arm. His torn sleeve sticks to his skin, which has been ripped asunder under the shadow's ministrations. Deeper still, his muscles and sinew are rent to the white bone underneath.

He wracks his brain, drawing on distant memories of anatomy lectures and texts that he had delved into when he was still a young and innocent scholar. The radius, that's it. He squeezes his eyes shut tight and concentrates on the throbbing tissue in his forearm. His radius is exposed. He assesses his other wounds quietly. The discomfort is a pleasant distraction from the darkness.

Suddenly, there are murmurs in the dark. Daniel does not dare search for them; his sanity is already waning. It has been slipping from his grasp for quite some time, after all. He passes the voices off as a consequence of his damaged mind, but they keep getting louder.

Then, light. It shines through the back of his eyelids. He opens them in astonishment. Although the blue lights are soft, they light the darkness with the radiance of a multitude of stars and blind him. Daniel manages to get to his feet, albeit unsteadily, and stumble forward, to the three suspended lights.

"There he is. Do you see him, Weyer?" Agrippa's familiar accent reverberates through the dark. Daniel feels hopeful tears spring to his eyes upon hearing the man's comforting voice.

"He deserves so much more. Please help him, I know you can."

He nearly falls again, but he catches himself. Forcing his injured body to move is unbearable. The lashes feel like liquid hot fire. Nevertheless, he persists. His heart is hammering inside his chest as he slowly hobbles to the lights.

"Don't worry, Daniel." Agrippa says, relief evident in his tone. "It will be alright."

The lights pulse and brighten, until they completely consume his vision. Daniel feels himself floating in nothingness but, unlike the darkness, its embrace is warm. He's falling into a comforting cushion so unlike the cold and damp castle of Brennenburg. It temporarily shocks his body, and he feels his adrenaline racing in time to his hammering heart as he slowly ascends from the void that had originally claimed him.

The light dims until he can see once again. He realizes that he's lying in a bed, with thick woolen blankets tucked over him. Natural sunlight brightens the room from a window nearby. He runs his fingers along the silk sheets, his mind an array of questions as he takes in his new surroundings. The room is immaculate and organized. Mahogany bookshelves line the adjacent wall that are filled with volumes of novels and unusual trinkets. A desk sits across from it, littered with various salves, gauze, and medicinal bottles. A single window with parted curtains alights the bedroom.

Daniel twists his head and grimaces. A headache throbs in the front of his skull. He is stricken with a sudden bout of nausea. From his position against the pillow, he can see a lit candle on the bedside table. The sight of it brings everything flooding back to him.

Brennenburg... horrible, disfigured monsters... Alexander's wicked grin… agony and the dark…

He sits up in an instant and is immediately assaulted with pain. He cries out, tears running down his feverish cheeks in rivulets. His torso is stiff under the pressure of a dozen bandages, as well as his right arm. He inhales deeply and tries to concentrate. What has happened to him?

Ignoring his wounds, Daniel struggles to untangle himself from the covers and press his bare feet onto the cool flooring. A sudden chill makes goosebumps dance across his skin. He grips the edge of the mattress with his uninjured hand and pushes his body upward. His knees threaten to give out as soon as he stands. He holds his breath and waits for the dizziness to subside.

Once the room stops swaying, Daniel takes his first uneasy steps forward. He glances at the bookshelf on the way by, but none of the texts make sense to him. The titles on their spines are printed in a foreign language. He pushes himself to the door, sweat dotting his forehead with the sheer effort. What is wrong with him…?

With shaking fingers, he grasps the metallic doorknob in his hand and turns it cautiously. A short hallway lit with half a dozen strange, electric lights burning against the maroon walls stretches out before him. On the other side, he can hear indiscernible voices amidst a conversation. Daniel leans heavily against one wall as he traverses the hall. His breathing is ragged and uneven as his vision swoons in nauseating colors.

Suddenly, he stumbles and collapses against the ground. The voices cease instantly, replaced by the sound of hurried footsteps coming in his direction. Someone is lifting him in their embrace. Daniel blinks slow in an attempt to see clearly. Above him, an expression of concern on his younger face, is Agrippa. It takes him a moment to realize how starkly the man's appearance has changed. When they'd first met in Brennenburg, Agrippa had been nothing more than a starved, dilapidated body of a man without a jaw. He had spoken through a device and managed to keep Daniel calm throughout the entire ordeal of collecting the orb pieces and escaping the shadow's clutches. In fact, Agrippa had been with him to the very end.

Daniel reaches out to touch his face, not quite ready to accept what his eyes are seeing. When his fingertips meet solid flesh, his heart leaps.

"Agrippa." He whispers.

The older man takes Daniel's hand into his own and holds on to it tightly. "It's good to see you awake, my boy."

Behind him, another figure hovers nervously, "Agrippa, he's not well. We should bring him back to bed."

Agrippa nods in agreement and scoops Daniel into his arms in one swift movement. Daniel lays his head against his chest and allows the man to carry him. He is far too weak to stand on his own again, anyway. Daniel's mind is spinning as the bedroom door is opened and he's placed carefully on the covers of the bed. He watches Agrippa pull the blankets back over him in a daze; the other man occupies himself with the bottles scattered across the desk.

"Agrippa," Daniel fears his voice has become too soft to hear, but he's relieved when the older man's emerald irises dart to him in question. "What's happened? Is the shadow…"

Agrippa shushes him gently and combs his fingers through Daniel's long brown hair. He finds himself leaning into the man's soothing touch.

"You are safe, Daniel. Rest easy, please. Weyer and I will explain everything to you soon."

Weyer approaches the bed with a glass vial held precariously between his fingers. The blue liquid inside it sloshes around as he holds it to Daniel's lips.

"This is a concoction that we've been administering to you, Daniel. It's both an analgesic and a sleep aid." Weyer says. Although Daniel had only read notes pertaining to Agrippa's student, his voice is rich and reassuring. He does not resist when the edge of the vial is placed against his lips. The medication tastes sour in the back of his throat, and he coughs uncontrollably. Weyer rubs his back in soothing circles until the fit subsides.

Daniel lays back into the pillows and waits for the tonic to take effect, but the sleep aid takes hold of him almost immediately. His eyelids become heavy, and the last thing he sees before falling into an uneasy sleep is Agrippa and Weyer watching over him with worried, yet hopeful, expressions.


	2. Chapter 2

Nightmares plague him. Daniel tosses and turns in the comfort of his bed, sweating and shaking as the shadow's clutches grip into him. He's thrust back into the pitch-black darkness of castle Brennenburg. His lantern is held in front of him, its soft glow lighting the dim path ahead. The cobblestone walls shine with a sheen of dampness that permeates the air and chills him to the bone. He shivers and draws his thin coat tightly around himself.

In the distance, wails of despair and agony break the silence. An unseen woman is sobbing from her cell; an old gentleman pleads for an end to his torture. There are children, too. Their cries seem to echo the loudest. They're shouting for their mothers and scratching their nails against the cell doors. Daniel pushes forward, desperate to escape their voices. The castle's foundations tremble as the shadow grows closer.

 _Daniel_

Daniel nearly drops the lantern out of pure terror. Alexander's all too familiar presence is inside his head again.

 _I can hear you breathing_

He picks up his pace until he's running blindly through the corridors. His only source of light begins to flicker, immersing him within complete darkness for precarious seconds. Daniel stops and watches the flame extinguish itself. He stretches out his hands to feel for the walls, but there's nothing there. He is trapped in never-ending darkness. His senses seem to become heightened and it's more difficult to catch a full breath.

 _Have you changed your mind?_

Alexander cackles. Daniel drops to the floor and hugs himself. He can hear the grunts and groans of monsters swarming him. The brute's large metal blade sparks against the ground as it's dragged towards its intended target. The victims of their torture are shrieking now. They beg for the pain to stop between each agonized scream. A little girl is begging for her life, but the knife cuts deep and her words become garbled.

A howl from deep within the dark makes the ground shake, and Daniel looks up. The shadow's pulsating red flesh is materializing before him. It' crimson glow is nearly upon him when he screams.

"Daniel!"

He awakens drenched in sweat and caught in the midst of a swath of sheets. His legs kick at the covers as he sits upright, ignoring the hands that are pushing against his chest. In the dim light, Agrippa's concerned face is cast in deep shadows from the candelabra he's placed on the bedside table. Daniel takes deep breathes as he struggles to shake the nightmare.

"Agrippa…" He whispers.

"I'm here, Daniel. You're safe."

Daniel bursts into tears. The aftershock of such a terrifying nightmare, combined with the memory of Alexander's taunting voice, makes him break down. He hunches over and cries into a bundle of blankets in his arms. He can't stop himself from shaking. Agrippa tries his best to soothe the younger man's worn mind.

"How is all of this possible, Agrippa?" Daniel says between sniffles. "We should be dead."

The shadow should have consumed them both. Daniel had been the subject of its abuse for months. He had been under the ministrations of its night terrors and suffered greatly. He had gone to extreme measures to keep the beast at bay, but it had always persisted, straight into the very depths of the Inner Sanctum.

And, Agrippa? He had been nothing more than a corpse, speaking through a contraption that allowed him to talk to Daniel at great lengths. When he had gathered the ingredients for Weyer's tonic, he'd thought that he had finally lost his sanity, but it had worked. Agrippa had been saved, somehow.

"Do you remember the portal Alexander created?" Agrippa asks.

Daniel nods silently.

Agrippa smiles, "That portal allowed us to step into another world. The very same world that Alexander was so keen to return to." He gestures to the entirety of the room. "You're not in Prussia anymore."

"But, how are you alive?"

"The same tonic that Alexander had used to bind my soul into a husk has since been refined by my pupil, Weyer. When my severed cranium was tossed into the portal, my soul was able to latch onto the new body that Weyer had prepared for me. You, however, already have a body and a soul, so you came as you are." Agrippa rubs his face with his hands in exhaustion. "You were extremely wounded, but we've managed to patch you up."

Daniel shakes his head, the voices of a hundred tormented innocents still lingering in his mind. "You should not have saved me, Agrippa." His eyes are downcast, too ashamed to look at the older man any longer. "I've killed people."

Agrippa sits on the edge of the bed. He places his hand over Daniel's and squeezes. "What you did was under the instruction of a mad man. Alexander convinced you to do those things."

"But my hands are the ones that committed the heinous acts!" His knuckles turn white as he clenches his fingers together anxiously. He's quivering like a leaf and he can't stop. The room feels too cold.

Agrippa's voice softens, "You were placed in a desperate situation, Daniel."

"I tortured people, Agrippa!" Daniel shouts, unable to stop the crack in his voice as the gravity of what he's done settles on his shoulders. "I have blood on my hands! I do not deserve to live."

Silence. Only the sound of wax dripping down the candelabra and its burning wicks disturb the peace. Daniel stares at the blankets, lost in his own dark thoughts.

"Daniel, it is true that if you had never discovered the orb, you would have never been led astray in Brennenburg." Agrippa takes the Englishman's chin in his fingers and tilts it up so that Daniel is gazing at him. "But, if you had never done what you did, I would have never been freed from my prison. Weyer and I would have never been reunited. Alexander would still be alive."

Agrippa let that sink in for a moment, before finishing, "You've done great things, my boy. Now is not the time to dwell on the past. You need to focus on replenishing your strength to face the future."

Daniel relaxes into the feather pillows, a million questions orbiting around his troubled mind. Although he does not clearly remember killing the villagers for Alexander, the memories still haunt him. His former self, the real Daniel, had become a murderer in search of retribution. Under Alexander's guidance, he had been led to torture men, women, and children, until the elder had abandoned him. Once he had been left to face the shadow alone, he had understood that he had been used. The guilt of his actions was crippling, until the moment he had swallowed the amnesia potion.

Upon awakening, Daniel had only felt anger. He had traveled through Brennenburg, revenge and sheer curiosity fueling him the entire way. He craved to figure out who "Daniel" had been before the amnesia potion, and once he had found out, his only goal was to end Alexander's life.

In the Inner Sanctum, Daniel had confronted him. He had been exhausted, mentally and physically. Alexander had been levitating amid the air, his pallid blue skin alight with an iridescent glow as the power of the orbs was channeled into him. Daniel had waited for the right moment to do as Agrippa had instructed. When the deed was done, the baron had cried out in agony and disintegrated.

But Daniel cannot bring himself to believe that the immortal baron is truly dead. Alexander was all powerful, omniscient even. Did he really fail to predict Daniel's revenge?

"What if Alexander isn't dead?" He utters, his grip tightening on the sheets in fear at the mere thought. The baron had never been pleasant to him.

Agrippa leans forward, a serious glint in his eyes. "Then Weyer and I will do whatever it takes to protect you from his wrath."

* * *

Does anyone even read Amnesia stories anymore?


End file.
